Malone Managing New NCAA World With Proven Power Five Performers
By David Glenn
In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, when new North Carolina coach Michael Malone served as a college assistant (Oakland, Providence, Manhattan), NCAA basketball teams were built much differently than they are today.
There was no such thing as the NCAA transfer portal (created in 2018), Name-Image-Likeness money (2021) or university-to-athlete revenue sharing (2025).
Under the NCAA rules still in place less than a decade ago, major college transfers in men’s basketball had to sit out a season at their new school. The overwhelming majority of players — especially proven performers — didn’t want to miss out on a full year of real-game competition, so high-profile transfers were relatively uncommon, especially compared to the exploding numbers in today’s portal-driven landscape.
As a result, by definition, coaches previously competed in a world where the only immediate-impact transfers — and there weren’t many — came from the junior college ranks. Those players were (and still are) immediately eligible at their new schools, but few were capable of starting at the Atlantic Coast Conference level, and some universities didn’t allow their coaches to recruit juco prospects at all.
Malone is back in college basketball for the first time in 25 years. He spent the past quarter-century in the National Basketball Association, most recently leading seven consecutive playoff teams (2018-19 through 2024-25) with the Denver Nuggets, including the 2023 NBA champions.
Michael Malone is introduced as the head men’s basketball coach on April 7, 2026, at the Dean E. Smith Center on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Photo via Johnny Andrews/UNC-Chapel Hill.)
The college game is much different now, especially when it comes to roster management, and Malone was thrown directly into the most hectic, fast-paced, two-week stretch on the entire college basketball calendar (yes, including March Madness).
This year’s transfer portal, which ran from April 7 (the day Malone was hired!) through April 21, was the shortest of the relatively brief portal era. College basketball’s version of speed-dating offered a 60-day window in 2023, then 45 days in 2024, 30 days in 2025 and only 15 days this year. Note: The window governs only portal entry; a transfer can make his college decision at any time, although scholarship availability, NIL/revenue-sharing budgets and coaches’ desire for roster stability often present practical deterrents to extended delays.
As you might have guessed, the past two weeks were a whirlwind.
Among the 13 scholarship players on coach Hubert Davis’ 2025-26 UNC roster, 10 put their names in the transfer portal. The only exceptions were freshman forward Caleb Wilson (entering the NBA draft), junior center Henri Veesaar (either entering the NBA draft or staying at UNC) and junior forward Jarin Stevenson (staying at UNC).
For a brief period in April, Malone had only one — one! — college-level player (Stevenson) firmly committed to play for him in 2026-27, an academic year just four months away.
Five of Davis’ players quickly picked other schools: junior guard Luka Bogavac (Oklahoma State), freshman guard Derek Dixon (Arizona), junior guard Kyan Evans (Minnesota), sophomore forward Zayden High (South Florida) and sophomore guard Jonathan Powell (Pitt). Two deep-bench reserves, big men James Brown and Ivan Matlekovic, are still searching for their next opportunity. UNC’s lone scholarship senior, Seth Trimble, put his name in the portal for only procedural reasons, just in case the NCAA adopts an offseason proposal that would allow five years of competition (instead of the current four) for all athletes.
Meanwhile, two other UNC portal entries ultimately opted to remain in Chapel Hill through the Davis-Malone coaching transition — guards Isaiah Denis (a rising sophomore who played little last season) and Jaydon Young (a rising senior who was the 10th man in what was often an eight-man rotation). In addition, two of Davis’ high school signees, forward Maximo Adams (a McDonald’s All-American) and guard Malloy Smith (son of UNC legend Kenny Smith), chose to follow through on their original college decisions.
Amidst that chaotic revolving door, Malone — still with just five committed players (and zero proven stars) for his first UNC team — leaned directly into college basketball’s new portal-driven world and signed three very talented and productive transfers who already have proven themselves at other Power Five programs.
Utah guard Terrence Brown (6-3/175), a 2026 honorable mention All-Big 12 selection, was the 12th-highest-scoring player in the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC) last season, at 19.9 points per game. (The only higher-scoring players in the Tar Heels’ neighborhood were All-ACC performers: Stanford guard Ebuka Okorie, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and Wake Forest guard Juke Harris.) While not a pure shooter nor a pure point guard, Brown excels at beating his man off the dribble, finding open teammates, converting quick drives and getting to the free throw line, where he converted at a 78 percent clip last season.
Virginia Tech guard Neo Avdalas, an NBA prospect from Greece, is another of the highest-scoring Power Five performers (see list below) on the ACC’s incoming transfer list for next season, although he’s better-known at this point of his career for his passing and playmaking abilities. At 6-9 and 215 pounds, Avdalas has extraordinary size for a point guard, and he managed better than a two-to-one (142-69) assist-to-turnover ratio for the Hokies last season. Among Malone’s challenges will be helping Avdalas become a stronger defender and a more efficient offensive performer, at point guard or otherwise.
NC State guard Matt Able (6-6/205), a consensus five-star high school prospect from the Class of 2025, was a highly productive sixth man last season for a Wolfpack squad that won 20 games and played in the NCAA Tournament. An efficient wing player, he averaged about nine points and three rebounds per game while shooting 42 percent from the field, 80 percent from the free throw line and 36 percent on 3-pointers.
Those players’ strong track records — specifically in Power Five conferences — go a long way toward explaining why the Tar Heels’ portal class (which also includes Florida Atlantic center Maxim Logue, who projects as a UNC backup) ranks among the top 10 nationally.
If Carolina basketball fans quickly pondered the most successful incoming transfers from the major college ranks in program history, the ensuing list would be overflowing with players who came from other Power Five programs, such as Veesaar (Arizona), Harrison Ingram (Stanford), Cameron Johnson (Pitt), Brady Manek (Oklahoma) and Cormac Ryan (Notre Dame). Reminder for old-timers: Bob McAdoo was a junior college signee.
Similarly, a large majority of the ACC’s most successful transfers — they grabbed eight of the 15 slots on last year’s All-ACC team — have come from Power Five programs. Among the league’s top 10 players last season were Veesaar (Arizona), Miami forward Malik Reneau (Indiana), SMU guard Boopie Miller (Wake Forest), Miami guard Tre Donaldson (Michigan) and Louisville guard Ryan Conwell (Xavier).
While there are certainly exceptions, where a star player from a lower-tier league excels even after making the big jump to the ACC, modern college basketball history suggests that the much wiser path (generally speaking) is to pursue those with significant accomplishments achieved while playing with and against top-caliber competition.
Malone already appears to have done his homework in that regard, and that means his Carolina debut has a much better chance of being successful.
Highest-Scoring Power Five Transfers (Among Incoming 2026-27 ACC Players)
UNC G Terrence Brown — HM All-Big 12; 20 ppg, 4 apg, 45% FG, 78% FT, 33% threes (Utah junior) Duke G John Blackwell — All-Big Ten; 19 ppg, 43% FG, 86% FT, 39% threes (Wisconsin) Louisville F Flory Bidunga — All-Big 12/DPOY; 13 ppg, 9 rpg, 64% FG, 91 blocks (Kansas) Clemson G Cole Certa — 13 ppg, 2 rpg, 37% FG, 89% FT, 37% threes (Notre Dame) UNC G Neo Avdalas — 12 ppg, 5 apg, 39% FG, 67% FT, 31% threes (Virginia Tech freshman) Miami PG Acaden Lewis — All-Big East; 12 ppg, 5 apg, 46% FG, 63 steals (Villanova) Pitt F Baye Ndongo — 2025 All-ACC; 12 ppg, 8 rpg, 56% FG, 72% FT (Georgia Tech) Florida State F Sebastian Rančík — 12 ppg, 6 rpg, 40% FG, 86% FT, 33% threes (Colorado) Pitt PG Nait George — 11 ppg, 5 apg, 41% FG, 83% FT, 29% threes, 47 steals (Syracuse) UNC G Matt Able — 9 ppg, 42% FG, 80% FT, 36% threes, 42 steals (NC State freshman)
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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